Pinned to the Past
by Mnemosyne's Elegy
Summary: It started off like any other fight, and ended with Gray in a trembling ball on the floor.
1. Part 1

**Note: I wrote this a long time ago and never intended to post it. It probably would have rotted in my computer for the rest of time, except for an incident that is, unfortunately, prodding me into posting it.**

 **This is a story about certain aftereffects of childhood sexual assault. If you find this content triggering or personally uncomfortable or you don't want to read about it for _any_ reason, please take that into consideration. There is _no_ explicit content, and the subject itself is mostly handled in an abstract and fragmented way. It's only rated M for language and subject matter.**

 **Anyway, I just had a friend tell me that he was assaulted as a child, and... Yeah, it was rough. Afterwards, I went back and dug up this story again.**

 **There are actually three parts; I might post the other ones later. I just want to say that this wasn't really written for entertainment value. It's not a treatise either, but everything is really symbolic and I took it seriously. Some things are played up simply because it _is_ a story, but I didn't sugarcoat it. Even to this day, this is still the hardest story that I have ever written. **

**Again, if you have any reason to not want to read this story, please don't feel pressured to read it. If you or anyone you know has ever experienced something like that, you have my sincerest condolences, and my heart hurts for you.**

* * *

 ** _Honey, if there was any one thing that could be said to magically make things better, then someone would have figured it out years ago and stuff like this wouldn't be an issue anymore. Obviously that one thing doesn't exist, but I wish it did so that I could say it to you right now._**

* * *

It started off like any other fight. Gray had made one sardonic comment too many about Natsu's latest screw-up, and the dragon slayer had thrown caution to the wind and attacked him right in the middle of the guild hall, even though Erza was only a few feet away.

"Why are you always so annoying?" Natsu complained, aiming a punch at Gray's face.

The ice mage just swayed to the side and smirked. Despite the sudden assault and the taunts raging back and forth, there was a gleam of excitement in Natsu's eyes that showed he was less mad than eager to have a good brawl.

"It's a talent," Gray replied cheerfully, almost managing to land a hit on his friend. "But if you wouldn't keep losing us all our reward money by destroying things, I wouldn't have quite as much to annoy you about."

"It was an _accident_!"

"And that makes it better how?"

There was a flash of movement in the edge of Gray's field of vision. Normally he knew better than to let himself get distracted during a fight, but something was coming at him fast and he automatically swiveled toward it, tensing in anticipation.

"You two need to stop right now!"

Gray caught a glimpse of Erza's furious expression as she stormed toward them, before he was suddenly shoved to the ground. His back slammed into the floor and he hissed in pain, his gaze jerking up to meet Natsu's equally surprised eyes. Apparently the dragon slayer hadn't expected him to lose concentration in the middle of a fight and get blindsided by such a straightforward attack either.

But Gray _had_ been distracted, and when he hadn't responded to the threat as expected, the force of the attack had toppled both combatants over. Never one to look a gift horse in the mouth, Natsu's surprise quickly melted away, a smirk spreading across his face as he adjusted his position and pinned Gray's arms and chest down.

"Well, well, who would've thought?" He grinned triumphantly. "Looks like I win. Now apologize for insulting me and maybe I'll let you up."

Gray was frozen, eyes wide, breath caught in his throat. No, no, no, this couldn't be happening. The heavy weight on his chest, his back pressed against the hard ground, the hands holding him down, the heat radiating from the body above him… It was all too familiar, dredging up the memories and sensations he'd worked so hard to bury over the years.

 _Pinned, trapped, helpless._

"Get off," he breathed, his voice sounding faraway and hollow in his ears.

The panic was setting in, clawing at his chest and dragging him back to a place he didn't want to go. No, he couldn't panic here, not in the middle of the guild in front of all his friends. It was just a friendly fight, nothing worse, so there was no reason at all to be panicking. But he could feel his muscles going rigid anyway as he sucked in ragged breaths, his heart thudding painfully against his chest so quickly that he worried he might pass out for a second. He was in the guild, it was just a fight, but reality was blurring and wavering under the press of the memories.

"Apologize," Natsu insisted.

"Will you just get off him?" Erza hissed from somewhere to the left. Gray was too panicky to look at her or really register her words as anything other than white noise. "What have I told you about fighting in the guild? You know that–"

"Let me go," Gray said, his voice rising in pitch. "Oh God, oh God, let me go."

 _Trapped, caged, it's going to happen again, again, again._

"Gray?" A hint of uncertainty and concern crept into Natsu's voice, and Gray forced himself to really focus on his friend's face. He couldn't lose it here in front of everyone. "Are you okay?"

 _"It'll be okay, you'll see. It's not so bad, hm?"_

Gray opened his mouth but nothing came out. His body's trembling was escalating to full-on shaking now.

Frowning, Natsu leaned down to peer at Gray's face with narrowed eyes. "What is–?"

 _Leaning down, coming closer, unwelcome heat, so, so wrong._

 _Fight back. It can't happen again. Fight back._

"No!"

The magic exploded out of Gray as he totally lost it, smashing into his assailant in a formless blast, too wild and primal to be controlled or shaped. Drawing his knees to his chest, he curled into the fetal position and squeezed his eyes shut.

 _Close your eyes and curl up and wish it all away, pretend it isn't happening, if you pretend you can't feel it then maybe it's like it never happened at all._

"What the hell? Do you two always have to destroy the guild?"

"Why couldn't you have just taken this outside?"

"Hey, you almost hit me!"

 _Too weak, too weak to fight, just survive._

"What are you–? Wait, is he okay?"

"What happened?"

"Gray? Gray, say something!"

 _"Normally I'd like to hear you scream my name, but we wouldn't want to get anyone's attention, would we? Be a good boy, stay quiet."_

Oh God, he was crying. He couldn't be doing that here, because…because… He just couldn't be. He wasn't supposed to be losing it here.

 _How utterly pathetic._

"Gray? What's wrong?"

Something touched his arm, shook him gently.

 _Hands everywhere, touching, prodding, burning. Stop, stop, stop._

"Don't touch me!"

 _Fight, fight, fight._

 _Won't do any good. You're too weak._

Gray lashed out blindly, limbs flailing and ice flying. It hadn't done much good before, but maybe he could hold his attackers off for a little while before he inevitably failed to stop anything at all.

"Ow! Crap. Give him some space. Natsu, stay away!"

 _Just give it up._

 _Fight, fight, fight._

 _Too weak._

 _Try anyway._

 _Too broken._

 _Fight anyway._

 _You can't win._

 _Can't lose, can't lose again._

 _Survive._

 _Survive._

 _Survive._

"What did I do to him? I didn't mean– I don't know– What did I do?"

He couldn't get any air in between the sobs and shaking. Hyperventilating without air, only serving to make him dizzy and scared.

 _Heavy hand pressing down, no air, can't breathe, can't scream._

It seemed to go on forever, an eternity of hell, but then the panic started slowly receding, ebbing away a little at a time, just enough that he could focus on the present again. The memories and phantom sensations were still there, overlaid on top of reality like a ghostly nightmare that shimmered away if he looked too closely yet continued preying on the edges of his mind, but he was slowly finding the differences between what was real and what was only a product of his imagination.

"I mean, surely there's something we can do?" That was Lucy. She sounded worried, scared. Not good.

"Let's let him do this part on his own." Erza. Even she sounded freaked out. "He almost took my head off earlier. Whatever's wrong, he doesn't want us that close to him. When he calms down then we can figure out how to help him."

"It's like he doesn't recognize us at all," Natsu mumbled. "Which is probably why he doesn't want us near him."

"But what is it that he's panicking about? He looks like he's reliving something." Cana. God, the whole guild was getting in on it.

As the sea of noise continued to resolve itself into individual voices, the other physical sensations began creeping back into place as well. There was the hard floor beneath him, and he was aware that he was curled into a ball, still shaking and gasping for breath.

Right in the middle of the guild.

He wanted to die, or at least sink through the floor and disappear so that he didn't have to stand up and face everyone. He didn't want to see the pity and concern on their faces, didn't want to know that they'd now seen him at one of his weakest points, a part of himself he'd never wanted them to see.

"Sometimes it's easy to forget since he never brings it up, but he had a really rough childhood," Erza said. "Maybe it's not surprising if it left a mark on him. Post-traumatic stress, maybe?"

 _Oh God, they know, they know, they've figured it out._

Gray almost started panicking again, before it occurred to him that they were talking about Deliora. They were assuming it was the memory of the demon that was haunting him. And it did, but that was a different nightmare for a different time, with its own set of challenges to face. But if they wanted to assume that's what this was, then all the better. Anything was better than the truth.

"I've never seen him do anything like this before, and I've known him for a long time. It must've been really bad for him to break down like this now…" Cana again.

"He's always been very good at hiding his pain." Tired, sad, regretful. Jii-chan. "We should help him in any way we can, but just…be gentle with him. This is the first time I've seen a brat have a full-blown panic attack in the guild. This shouldn't be a place for him to feel uncomfortable or afraid. It should be quite the opposite."

 _You have to get up and face them eventually._

 _It would be so much easier to lay here forever and pretend this isn't happening._

 _How pathetic. That's never worked before, has it?_

Gray sucked in a shuddering breath, savored the coldness of the floor against his cheek for a moment longer, and then slowly pushed himself to a sitting position, keeping his eyes fixed firmly on the ground so that he didn't have to see anyone's expression. That edge of panic was still eating away at him, leaving him off-balance and prepared to plunge right back over the edge if he wasn't careful, but it was almost, _almost_ , under control. For now. But he needed to get out of here in case he lost it again. From experience, he knew that it could take hours for him to calm down completely.

"Gray? Are you alright?" Lucy asked. "What happened?"

Everyone was asking him if he was okay, what happened, what they could do, and their voices blended together in an otherworldly blur. For a second he felt like he was slipping away again, the echoes of worried questions fading to a faraway hum and the hard reality beneath his hands wavering dangerously. Taking a deep breath, he stood up, wincing at the stiff achiness of his muscles.

"I'm fine," he rasped. It was hard to force the words out past the tightness constricting his throat, but at least it helped ground him a little, pin him to reality.

"You're obviously not fine," Happy disagreed, his anxiety clearly evident in his voice even though Gray refused to look at him.

Gray shrugged halfheartedly and swiped at his face to get rid of the tears he had apparently been shedding.

 _Bawling in front of the entire guild when nothing even happened. Pathetic, pathetic, pathetic._

He still didn't want to look at his friends and see what they thought about his little episode reflected in their eyes, but he couldn't stare at his feet forever. It was harder than it should have been to wrench his gaze away from the ground, but he finally managed it. His eyes skipped over faces, but he quickly found himself distracted by the devastation wrought on the hall.

There was ice everywhere, jagged spears radiating out from where he had been lying, piercing through the walls and roof, splintering wood and missing flesh by inches. It was ugly, all sharp, slicing edges and cold splendor, a physical manifestation of the ugliness of his soul. Slowly, still entranced by the dreadful spectacle, he waved a hand and let his magic dissipate, leaving behind only the damage it had caused to the building.

 _You lost control. How could you lose control like that? You could have killed someone._

Another jolt of panic spiked through him and his head jerked around as he sought out Natsu with his eyes. He had a vague recollection of the dragon slayer pinning him down, and with the explosion of magic that followed… He let out a shaky breath, a wave of relief crashing over him as he spotted Natsu, who seemed unharmed aside from a couple shallow cuts.

 _But you could have killed him._

 _But I didn't._

 _You're dangerous._

 _Better than weak._

 _Is it?_

"You look like you could use a drink," Cana said. Gray's head swiveled toward her and he fixed his gaze on a point just to the left of her eyes. "A really strong one. Calm you down."

"Or a warm meal," Mira suggested. "Why don't you sit down?"

Gray shook his head jerkily. "I'm fine now."

 _You could have killed any of them._

Erza cautiously approached him, moving slowly until she could determine how he would react. He stiffened but stood still, aside from the persistent trembling that just wouldn't stop.

"Gray, you know you can tell us anything," she said gently.

 _Oh God, she knows, she guesses, no, no, no._

He tried to tamp down the instinctive surge of panic, reminding himself that they still thought this was just about Deliora or something equally innocuous. He would've never thought he'd describe Deliora as 'innocuous', but in this particular situation, almost anything was preferable to the truth.

"Sure." He half shrugged, half nodded, even knowing that it was a lie.

His gaze flickered away, but abruptly zeroed in on her face again as he noticed a thin red gash across her cheek, a few streaks of crimson blood dribbling free to mar her skin. He thought he remembered lashing out again when someone had touched him, and it looked like Erza was the lucky winner. Stepping forward, Gray reached out hesitantly, his fingers hovering just above the cut for a few moments. Unable to make himself cross that last half-centimeter divide, he dropped his hand.

"I'm sorry," he breathed. Hunching his shoulders and dropping his gaze to the ground again, he turned away and headed for the door. "I should go."

"Wait!"

He sensed the movement before any of his physical senses picked it up and spun back around, the temperature of the air around him plummeting as his magic sprang to his fingertips, ready to mold. To fight. Erza halted her approach immediately, wincing and taking a conciliatory step backward.

"Sorry, I should have known better," she said, eyes shining with regret.

Gray swallowed hard, trying to put a stop to the shaking that had suddenly intensified again.

 _He's going to attack, fight back, you have to strike first._

 _It's just Erza._

 _Fight, fight, fight._

He stared down at his trembling hands, willing himself to release his death grip on his magic. He wasn't under attack—there was no need to be holding so tightly to his magic.

 _No, no, no. Don't let go. You can't be weak, helpless, defenseless._

 _I'm not under attack._

 _You're always under attack. Can you afford to take the risk? Fight, strike first._

 _It's safe here._

 _Never safe. Never, never, never._

He unclenched his fists with difficulty, grinding his teeth together as he tried to let go of the magic and tamp down the resulting panic.

 _I'm going to lose control again and kill someone._

That thought was like being doused in cold water, and he gasped harshly, finally finding the push he needed to release his magic. He couldn't afford to lose control again. The magic melted away from his fingertips, settling back in its normal place to wait, but he was afraid that it could burst forth again at the slightest provocation. He wrapped his arms around himself as tightly as possible, digging his fingers into his sides painfully in a bid to contain the magic and let the sharp ache ground him.

"It's fine," he mumbled.

"Gray… What is it that you're so afraid of?" Erza asked quietly.

 _Hands—reaching, crushing, trapping, touching. Fire—burning, hurting, winning, destroying. Him—leering, laughing, caging, violating._

"Not you," Gray managed to choke out, shrinking in on himself even more. "It's not you."

 _It's everything. Scared of everything. Broken, weak, pathetic._

He shook his head slightly. It wasn't his friends' fault that he was lashing out at them, and it wasn't them he really kept trying to fend off. Probably they had guessed that, but better safe than sorry.

"I'm sorry," Natsu said suddenly. Despite himself, Gray was startled enough to meet his eyes. It must be bad if Natsu was apologizing to him. Gray could read the guilt and worry and grief in his friend's eyes and it was so wrong because Natsu shouldn't ever look like that. "I didn't mean to… I'm sorry. What did I do? I mean, is there something I can do to fix this?"

"It has _nothing_ to do with you," Gray said vehemently.

 _Except… Burning—heat. Trapping—pinning. Pain—hurt._

"It's not your fault," he added, voice lowering as he looked away. "Just… You can't pin me down like that, okay?"

"But… It's not the first time that's happened, but you've never reacted like this before."

True enough. It wasn't frequent, but every once in a while Gray would find himself pinned down for one reason or another. Maybe Natsu trapped him up against a wall when they were fighting, or an opponent caged him in a battle. And even after all these years, that was still the most triggering sensation for him, the one that could stir up the panic even though he'd learned how to mostly control it over time and push the memories down until he could ignore them as long as nothing forcibly dragged them up again.

Gray always had to be hyperaware of his surroundings. He had to know where everyone was and what they were doing. Scanning for threats, basically. So usually he could see those moments coming, and it would at least give him the chance to prepare himself and keep the panic under control until he could escape. The difference this time was that he had been distracted and hadn't seen it coming.

"You caught me by surprise," he mumbled. "But it never ends well. Just… Please. Please don't."

"Of course I won't," Natsu said hurriedly, wringing his hands together. "I'm sorry. I didn't know."

"Of course you didn't." Gray laughed hollowly. "I didn't want you to."

"Is there anything we can do?" Lucy burst in. "To help?"

 _No one's coming. No one notices, no one hears. How can they all pass by without noticing?_

"No," he said flatly.

 _A decade too late._

He turned away, needing to escape. "I'll be good as new by tomorrow."

He paused a moment in the doorway as Erza spoke up again.

"If you need us, we're here," she said softly. "We're always here for you, no matter what."

Gray's throat constricted painfully, hot tears pricking at the corners of his eyes.

 _If only you knew, Erza. If only you knew._

"I'll work on repairing the damage to the hall tomorrow," he said, not looking back.

He pushed his way out the door before anyone could respond, and made a beeline for his apartment. Now that he didn't have to keep it together in front of his friends, he could feel himself starting to slip away again. He bowed his head to hide the tears, but there was nothing he could do about the trembling.

A passerby bumped into him.

 _Someone bumps into him. A pause. A hand wraps around his wrist._

 _"Hey kid, got a minute?"_

 _The hand tightens its grip._

Gray took off running, his feet pounding against the street, the sound echoing in his ears along with his gasps for breath. His muscles were still stiff and achy from his episode, but he didn't care. Maybe he could at least run it out, tire himself out enough that the panic faded away.

 _You can't outrun the past._

He could try.

 _"Sorry, kiddo. There's nowhere to run."_

The necklace seemed to superheat, the pendant burning his skin, branding him every time it bounced against his chest.

 _"Well, I'd feel bad if I didn't give you something…"_

 _I don't want it, don't want it, go away._

Gray slammed into his door at full speed, hissing in pain as he bounced back off it. Rummaging through his pocket, he found the key and tried to fit it into the lock, but dropped it. Cursing, he dropped to his knees, his hands scrabbling around until they found the key again. It took several tries to get it into the lock, impeded by the violent shaking of his hands, but eventually he got the door open and burst inside.

He headed straight for the bathroom, splashing his face with ice-cold water in an attempt to snap himself back to reality and overcome the phantom heat burning across his body. For a second it seemed to help, until he glanced up and found himself staring right at his reflection in the mirror. It seemed to waver, melting into a younger boy with eyes full of pain and shame.

 _Weak, pathetic, dirty, shameful, broken._

Without thinking, Gray lashed out and slammed his fist into the mirror, the reflective surface splintering under the force of the blow. Shards of glass rained down, but enough jagged pieces remained on the wall to keep reflecting back that goddamn child. Except that now, with the cracks running across his face, he was just as broken on the outside as he was on the inside.

Good.

He spun away, ignoring the splinters of glass stuck in his hand and the blood oozing from the injuries. He didn't care. And it's not like it was such a big deal. It wasn't the first time he'd broken every mirror in his apartment because he didn't want to see his face reflected back at him.

Throwing himself onto his bed, he squeezed his eyes shut and pulled the pillow over his head and waited

 _How could you lose it in front of the whole damn guild?_

for

 _They're going to figure it out, see how broken and pathetic you really are._

it

 _And who will love you then?_

all

 _You always screw everything up. You hurt them._

to

 _Maybe you deserved it._

end.

* * *

 **Note: Yeah. I don't really know what else to say about this. I may or may not post the other two parts later.**

 **emmahoshi: It's alright, I put up the warnings because I know this isn't for everyone. These are the type of fics that I, personally, look for when I'm dealing with my own issues and am looking for a way to find my own answers, but it's definitely not everyone's preferred method. But thank you, and I'll see you next story.**


	2. Part 2

**Note: I've heard from a lot of people, and it's made me decide to suck it up and finish posting this. That being said, if you have issues with this subject matter, then this might be the part that's mostly likely to give you problems. Still no explicit content, but this is the part that most directly addresses everything. I fucked myself up real good just writing this, and I've never even personally experienced these things.**

 **This part is...different. I had some serious misgivings about writing it this way, if only because it has the potential to very easily become tasteless. I did it anyway, because everything here is _highly_ symbolic. I basically took an internal conflict and externalized it, projecting it onto the outside world. I could've gotten a similar effect from an internal monologue, but not even I want to read a ginormous monologue. **

**I externalized the conflict, but Gray is very much fighting himself.**

* * *

"This is so stupid," Natsu complained. "We could be doing an actual fun job right now, but _nooo_."

"Will you stop whining already?" Erza snapped. "It's fighting—you should be having a blast."

"I'm actually going to have to agree with the flame-brained idiot for once," Gray said as he smirked over at Natsu, pleased that he could meet his friend's eyes without flinching.

He'd had a difficult time meeting people's eyes after his meltdown a few months ago, but it had gotten better once his friends had started acting more normally around him again. They'd treated him like fragile glass at first, until he'd made it clear that he hated it and had stubbornly insisted on sweeping the entire incident under the rug like it had never happened at all. But everyone still remembered it anyway, and he always felt that prick of shame when he saw that knowledge reflected in their eyes.

"Yes, well you're both equally stupid," Happy muttered.

Gray snorted. "Look, all I'm saying is that it's getting annoying that they're harassing us about stupid crap one minute and then demanding favors of us the next."

"And they're not even paying us," Natsu grumbled.

"No, but they _are_ going to overlook how you destroyed half of Hargeon last week." Erza gave the boys a hard look. "And anyway, it's the Council. It's not like we can say no."

"Why not?" Gray asked sourly. He was really only half paying attention to the conversation, more preoccupied with scanning the darkened hallways for threats as they walked past. It didn't pay to get distracted while in the den of a dark guild. "They're always pushing us around, but let's be honest, we could do whatever we wanted and they couldn't actually stop us. The only time they ever did anything important was when they fired Etherion, and that was a total fiasco."

"There are a lot of really powerful mages on the Council," Erza said.

"Yeah, but they never do anything." Gray rolled his eyes. "Every time something major comes up, all the Council ever does is sit back and then later complain that we damaged a few buildings while taking care of what should be _their_ job.

"And the only time they really get involved in anything is to ask us to take care of this wimpy dark guild which isn't even a threat. Super powerful dark guild threatens to take over the world? Eh, ignore it. Maybe Fairy Tail will take care of it eventually. Wimpy dark guild dares attempt to break into headquarters once and fails miserably? Call in Fairy Tail to eradicate them immediately. Honestly."

"Why couldn't they have sicced us on a cool dark guild?" Natsu whined, peeking down an offshoot of the corridor and scowling when it was empty. "If they were going to boss us around, the least they could have done was give us some fun enemies to fight. These guys are totally lame."

Gray suppressed a smile. They could always count on Natsu to have his priorities straight.

Erza sighed and rubbed at her face wearily. "We still have to answer to the Council, whether you like it or not. Look, at least they actually sent some help this time."

"Who needs help when these guys are so weak?" Natsu griped.

Gray was also unimpressed. "The Knights are only here to sit outside and look pretty until they decide it's safe enough to venture in and throw anti-magic cuffs on everyone we defeated."

"No one really likes the Council, but we're stuck with them, so why bother complaining?" Happy asked.

"Because this job is so boring that I have nothing better to do," Gray said with a laugh.

"Well, can we save it for after we've finished?" Lucy broke in, glaring at the rest of the team. "No point getting distracted. And you guys are loud enough that we've completely lost the element of surprise."

Gray smirked, unconcerned. "Oh? I thought we lost the element of surprise back when squinty eyes over there exploded half the building on his way in."

"And that was the only real action we've seen so far," Natsu grumbled, kicking moodily at the floor.

"For the love of– Lucy's right," Erza said, her clipped strides radiating irritation as she sped up to take the lead. "Let's just finish things up and get out of here."

Gray chuckled quietly but fell silent. As fun as annoying his teammates was and as easy as this job seemed to be, it still paid to be cautious. This was a fairly small dark guild that normally flew under the radar, and so far all the mages they'd run across in this labyrinth were of mediocre strength at best. The team had already taken out a dozen or so, and they had to be almost done. The Council had shown them the blueprints of the hideout—how the Council had managed to get those blueprints when they were entirely incompetent was beyond Gray—and it looked like they were coming up on the heart of the building. There wasn't anywhere else for the dark mages to hide, so the final confrontation should be coming up.

Gray followed behind Erza and kept his eyes peeled for anything out of the ordinary. There was no sign of anyone else in the main corridor or in any of the rooms branching off of it, and soon they found themselves standing outside a large wooden door.

"I guess all the rest of them are in there?" Lucy suggested doubtfully.

"Probably," Erza agreed. "There should be the leader and maybe half a dozen others."

"Let's just get it over with," Happy said tiredly. "The sooner we get out of here, the sooner we can get some fish. I'm hungry."

Erza rolled her eyes but nodded. "Get ready."

She pushed the door open and entered the room cautiously, hefting her sword in preparation. The others filed in behind her, tensed up and ready to fight. It was a huge room with a high ceiling, but since there were zero windows, it was gloomy and dark anyway. The team inched further inside, squinting at the shadows cloaking the edges of the room.

"They're in here," Natsu said. "I can smell them. Maybe fourteen or fifteen."

Hm. That was more than they had expected, although it wasn't enough to worry Gray. Not after seeing how easily the other half of the guild had gone down.

The shadows at the perimeter shifted and wavered as the enemy mages stepped out into the light, faces set in grim determination as they prepared for their last stand. They weren't a very impressive bunch, and Gray ignored them in favor of focusing on the one who strode toward the team with confident strides and a small smirk.

A wave of sudden fear hit Gray, at complete odds with his assessment of how weak these enemies were. He couldn't take his eyes off the man walking toward him. He wasn't sure what it was that was freaking him out so much, but alarm bells were going off in his head and he had the sudden urge to turn tail and flee.

 _Run, run, run, run, run._

"And to what do we owe the pleasure of a visit from the great Fairy Tail guild?" the man drawled, eyeing the team up and down as he stopped a few feet away, apparently confident in his ability to stand up to them. "We're just a lowly little dark guild. We never expected to get such superstars visiting us."

Natsu shrugged. "No offense, dude. Apparently you got on the Council's bad side and they want you taken out."

"Ah, I see, and what–?" The man broke off as his eye caught on Gray, and he frowned slightly, studying the ice mage like he was an interesting insect.

Gray's breath got stuck in his throat, and he took an unconscious half-step back.

 _Run, run, run, run, run._

"Funny," the dark mage said, still eyeing Gray thoughtfully, "I used to have a necklace just like that once."

 _Impossible, impossible, it can't be. What are the chances?_

"Impossible," Gray breathed aloud, eyes widening.

The man in front of him was a decade older than when they'd last met, but his eyes were the same. Cold, calculating, evil, evil, evil. This ghost of the past smiled suddenly, cruel amusement entering his eyes, and Gray recognized it, his heart speeding up in response as his body started trembling.

"I gave it to a kid years and years ago. Ah yes, your eyes are the same. You've grown up well, kiddo."

 _"You're a little young for my taste. Usually I like them older, but I'll make an exception for you since you've got such pretty eyes."_

"Huh? Gray, do you know him?" Natsu asked in surprise.

Gray ignored him, his tunnel vision fixed firmly on the dark mage. When the man's smirk widened and he started walking forward again, Gray began backing up, almost tripping over his own feet in his haste to get away.

 _What are you doing? Run, fight, do something._

"What a coincidence. It's been so long that I wouldn't have recognized you if not for the necklace and the fact that you still can't keep your clothes on." Darkly amused smile. "Get it? Can't keep your clothes on." Laugh.

 _Hands ripping, tearing. Exposed, scared._

The world was fading away, blurring into a formless dream except for the laser focus on the man in front of him. In some small corner of his brain not entirely consumed by panic, Gray was vaguely aware that his friends were worried and trying to get to him, trying to fight through all the other dark mages. He didn't care. Not about the battle raging around him, or anything else aside from this little slice of nightmare.

His back hit the wall and he immediately panicked as he realized that he had nowhere else to go. His assailant laughed and crossed the last few paces in two long strides, grabbing Gray's wrists and slamming them back against the wall.

 _Pressed against the wall, wriggling, kicking. Back sliding against the rough stone painfully, pushed to the ground, struggling to no avail._

There was no struggling this time. Gray was frozen, staring at his attacker with wide, horrified eyes. His mind screamed at him to do something, _anything_ , but he couldn't move. How pathetic. He'd gotten accidentally pinned down for a few seconds in a friendly fight, and had completely freaked out and destroyed half the guild. Now that he was facing real danger, he couldn't even move a muscle.

"What's wrong? You fought me the entire way last time. What happened to all that spunk? Don't tell me I broke you."

 _Biting, kicking, struggling, writhing._

 _Shame, pain, horror, fear. Broken._

Gray tried to suck in a breath, but the hyperventilating was making him lightheaded. The trembling only grew worse. He had magic, he could fight. He was strong, he could fight. But he didn't move.

"It's like fate, isn't it?" Leaning in a little, smirking. "I mean, what are the chances that we'd run into each other again after so many years? It's like the universe is telling us that we should have a round two."

He leaned closer but didn't make a move. Gray wasn't sure if he was serious or was just trying to get his kicks in before the rest of the team inevitably took down him and what remained of his guild. And it didn't really matter. The terror was just as strong.

"Would you like that?"

 _"Oh, come on, you know you like it."_

"I would've thought you would have gotten rid of the necklace already, but you kept it for all these years, huh? I guess that means you liked it more than you let on."

His last words sent a sudden wave of fury searing through Gray, temporarily burning through the panic. He latched on to it and stoked it as best he could, knowing that if he could hold on to it, he could keep the panic at bay long enough to do _something_.

Eyes narrowing and mouth twisting into a snarl, he ripped his wrists out of the other man's grasp, sending his assailant stumbling backward a few paces.

"You don't get to tell me what I did or didn't like," Gray growled, eyes flashing.

 _How dare he, how dare he, how dare he?_

The anger freed his mind enough that he could reach for his magic again, and his hands quickly folded into familiar positions, the movements choppy with fury. The ice responded to his command, bursting forth and sending the other man flying across the room. Gray stalked after him, his anger and pain causing his magic to radiate outwards, dropping the temperature of the room precipitously.

A flash of movement in his peripheral vision let him know that a couple of underlings were rushing toward him, either to stop him or help their master. Without bothering to even glance at them, he swept his hands out to the sides and sent icy spears to put them out of commission. Ignoring their cries, he advanced on the real object of his attention.

 _See? You're strong, you have magic, you can defend yourself._

His childhood nightmare had recovered from his surprise and was pulling himself to his feet again, that infuriating smile spreading across his face once more. Gray didn't give him a chance to run his mouth again or launch another attack.

 _Strike first. Fight, fight, fight._

"I've waited a long fucking time to give this back to you," Gray hissed, grabbing the necklace's pendant and yanking on it so violently that the clasp on the chain snapped. He didn't care about the pain or choking sensation, because it was worth it to get rid of something far more painful.

 _"I should give you something for being such a good sport. I pay whores, so I guess I should pay you too, yeah?"_

Pouring his magic into the pendant, Gray slammed it into his assailant's forehead with enough force to push him backward. The man cried out as the subzero metal hit his heated skin. Gray was hoping for full-on frostbite.

 _"I don't have any money on me, but here, you can sell this and get a pretty penny."_

"I never wanted _anything_ from you," Gray snarled, noting with vicious satisfaction that when the necklace fell away, a patch of blackened, deadened skin remained. "Not your money or your stupid trinkets. What made you think that I wanted you to pay me like I was a common whore? Like I had a _choice_? I'm not your pet, your bitch, your toy. You don't get to talk to me like that, to treat me like that. How _dare_ you?"

The older man winced and grimaced, rubbing at his forehead for a moment. It must hurt like hell, Gray could read the pain in his eyes, but he was back to looking like he was amused by the whole situation, like this was all just a fucking game. It made the rage burn hotter, and Gray was almost grateful for it because it kept all his other emotions at bay.

"Well, well, looks like you've still got some fight left in you after all," the asshole purred. "Good. I rather liked that about you."

 _"It's actually kind of cute, how you keep struggling anyway."_

"Fuck you," Gray spat, hands curling into fists.

"Actually, the way I remember it, _I_ fucked _you_ ," he said, amusement sparking in his eyes as he chuckled.

Gray lashed out automatically, his fist colliding with the other man's jaw. The bastard stumbled back a half-step and winced, but then grinned again. How could he act like something so horrible was just a game? How could it just be a game to him when it had ripped Gray's life apart?

"Shut the hell up."

"Aw, come on, kiddo. It couldn't have been that bad. And running around half naked is basically asking for it."

"That's not an _invitation_." Gray lunged again, but the man just dodged and smirked. "I couldn't help it back then, but I'll give you credit for being the only thing that ever managed to make me break the habit."

 _Pull on layers and layers and layers. Still feel the hands anyway._

"Oh? It doesn't really look like much has changed."

Gray summoned up his magic again, but fire sprang to the other man's hands and melted through the ice. Gray took a half-step back and watched the flames warily. He remembered this part too.

 _Burning, scorching, pain, pain, pain._

"Yeah, well after a few weeks I trained myself back into it." Gray scowled. "I can't stop now, see? If I stop, you win. You already took so much from me—you don't get to take this too."

The stripping habit could be pretty damn annoying sometimes, but it had originally sprung from Ur's training techniques. That this bastard had come by and used it to his advantage, given it a new and darker meaning, was unacceptable. It had become uncomfortable, shameful, dangerous. Gray had hated that, so he'd worked to turn it back around, to try to bring it back to what it had once been. He'd even mostly succeeded.

The man laughed. "I'll take whatever I want."

"I'd like to see you try," Gray growled back, slipping into a defensive stance.

"Kid, you couldn't stop me last time. What makes you think that this time will be any different?"

 _Too weak, too weak, can't stop him._

 _I'm stronger than I was then._

 _Are you?_

"I've spent the last decade training against a fire mage way stronger than you," Gray said coldly. "I think I can handle it."

"I guess we'll see, won't we?"

The flames burst forth, turning the space between the two into a raging inferno. Gray braced himself for the pain he knew was coming. He remembered this particular flavor of fire, the one that had hurt him the worst.

 _Blistering, cruel, hungry, painful… Weak?_

Gray's ice swept through the fire, freezing it solid, leaving a field of crystalline flames in its wake. He frowned at the spectacle, taken off guard.

"Were you always this weak?" he wondered aloud.

 _Pathetic. How could flames this weak have melted through your ice so easily? How could you have been defeated by something so weak?_

 _Maybe I've just gotten stronger since then._

 _Have you?_

He let the ice shatter and dissipate. The two adversaries stared at each other, both equally surprised. Then Gray's lips twisted into an icy smile. This man wasn't even a real threat anymore.

He started forward with newfound confidence, easily deflecting his enemy's attacks. Everything that hadn't worked when he was a kid worked now—his shield held off the flames, his ice withstood the heat, his magic tore through enemy defenses.

"Well, would you look at that?" Gray said coldly, coming to a halt just in front of his defeated adversary in a heap on the floor. At least the bastard wasn't so smug now. He didn't look as scared as he should, but he was collapsed and bleeding and finished, and that was enough. "Looks like you underestimated me this time. I'm not just some scared little kid in an alley anymore."

The man chuckled breathily, wincing and wrapping an arm around his injured ribs. "Yeah, you sure grew up." His gaze took on a calculating cast, and that hint of unbearable smugness started creeping back into his expression again. "So, what are you going to do now?"

Gray stared at him silently for a moment.

 _Make him bleed, make him hurt, pay him back a hundred times over._

"You're lucky," he said finally. "If I'd stumbled across you a few years ago, I might have killed you. But now…" He shook his head. "Now you're not worth it."

He turned away. His mind shrieked at him to turn back around, that it was stupid to turn his back on an enemy, but he ignored it and started walking away, mouth set in a grim line. The man was finished, and the Council's Knights would be charging in here within minutes to drag him to jail. It was over.

Gray couldn't undo the past and couldn't bring himself to kill the bastard even though he undoubtedly deserved it, so the only thing left to do was walk away. It was hard, it was scary, but it was almost like a mini victory, that he could act like none of this had been a big deal, like it didn't still hurt. He didn't want to give the bastard the satisfaction of a show. This horribly inhuman man might think it was all a game, but Gray wasn't willing to play along anymore.

That didn't mean that it wasn't difficult, that he wouldn't rather rip the asshole's heart out, that it wasn't frightening to turn his back on a threat in a way that stirred up the panic underlying the anger. Gray just tried to tamp down his out-of-control emotions and focus on putting one foot in front of the other.

But it got even harder the second he realized that the rest of the room was silent, the other enemies already defeated.

 _Oh God, they know now. They really know._

The shame and anxiety swept over him in a crushing wave. He didn't know how much his friends had seen and heard, but they undoubtedly knew what had happened now. It was like he couldn't keep anything hidden from them forever. They'd found out about his parents, Ur, Deliora, and now this. With all his ugliest, darkest secrets laid out before them, Gray had never before felt so exposed and humiliated. But since he couldn't just sink into the floor and wish it all away, he fixed his gaze on the ground right by Erza's shoes and kept walking, unable to look anyone in the eye.

"Where are you going, kiddo?" Amused again. How could he be so goddamn smug when he couldn't even stand? "If you're not going to kill me then we might as well have some more fun, yeah? You know what they say—if you're not dead, you might as well fuck. Or something like that."

 _Make sure he knows he isn't getting to you._

 _But he_ is _getting to me._

 _Don't let him know that. He's playing a game, trying to get a reaction. Don't give it to him._

Gray fought not to hunch his shoulders, instead grinding his teeth together, eyes narrowing dangerously. He forced himself to keep walking at a leisurely pace, keep his emotions tightly leashed.

Natsu growled low in his throat, but Gray made a sharp silencing gesture with his hand. Not that the ice mage really had a good idea of how anyone was taking this, since he still couldn't bring himself to look at any them.

 _How dare he talk to me like that in front of my friends?_

 _They know, they know, nothing will ever be the same again._

"Still playing hard to get, huh?"

A slight scuffling sound alerted Gray to the fact that the man was trying to pull himself to his feet. He almost panicked and spun back around, but forcibly stopped himself. There was no real threat—the bastard was injured too badly to put up a fight. If only logic could win out against emotion.

 _Ignore him, ignore him, ignore him._

"Hm, I guess I could always play with your friends instead. I've always rather liked pink."

Gray snapped, whipping around and crossing the distance he'd just traveled in the space of a heartbeat. He slammed the half-standing mage into the wall, ramming his elbow into the man's throat to cut off his air supply.

" _That_ ," he snarled, eyes blazing, "I _will_ kill you for."

The older man's eyes widened and he struggled feebly, his face starting to turn blue from lack of oxygen. The smugness was gone now—whatever he saw in Gray's face had convinced him that he had gone too far and was now in serious danger.

 _Trapped, caged, suffocating, can't breathe, hurts, pain, fear, shame._

 _He deserves it._

 _Weak, powerless, scared, humiliated._

Gray sucked in a breath and took a step back, releasing the man. He couldn't keep anyone trapped like that, not even the person who most deserved it, because all he could see and feel was himself as a child, frightened and caged. He couldn't do that to someone else.

Instead, he grabbed the bastard's arm and twisted it around sharply, until it bent in an unnatural direction and a loud snap echoed through the air. The man cried out in pain and dropped back to the floor.

Gray looked down at him coldly, turning up his nose at the trembling wreck. "You haunted my nightmares for years," he said. "You were right up there with the real live demon. But now that you're here in front of me again… You're actually rather pathetic, aren't you?"

This sniveling mess was a far cry from the boogieman of his nightmares, the powerful and sadistic figure hiding in the shadows of his mind. Even without the fury, some of Gray's panic was starting to melt away. It was hard to be afraid of something so unimpressive.

"Maybe it isn't you that I'm scared of after all."

 _Defenseless, helpless, out of control, can only sit back and watch, can't do anything, let me go, make it stop._

The man himself wasn't terribly frightening anymore, but even now that he was separated out from the worst of the memory, the emotions he had stirred up still remained. That feeling of being weak, of being unable to stop something terrible from happening, of failure, of shame… That remained, and Gray didn't try fooling himself into thinking that it hadn't had its roots in his earlier experiences with Deliora, before this asshole had ever even come into his life. A man was a man was a man. But Gray's weakness and inability to protect himself and the people he loved were what really hurt the most.

"Is it still a fun game now that you're the one who's weak and defenseless?" Gray sat down abruptly so that he could look the older mage in the eye. "You fucked me up real good."

"Or do you mean that I fucked you real good?"

"Both." Gray smiled. It could almost be pleasant, if not for the dangerous edge underneath. "But I'd keep my mouth shut if I were you," he continued conversationally. "My patience with you was already wearing thin even before you dragged my friends into this and threatened them. You might still think this is all some silly game, but it was never a game to me. Do you think I'm not serious? Look me in the eye and tell me that I won't kill you without a second thought."

He really had no intention of killing anyone, if only because he didn't want any more blood on his hands, but he was feeling murderous enough to get his point across.

The other man swallowed hard, fear finally spreading across his face. "I wasn't really threatening–"

"Oh, I know," Gray interrupted. "You were just trying to bait me. Well, you got your reaction. Is it everything you hoped it would be? You just want to keep pushing at me to see if I'll break. That's what you really want to know, isn't it? How close you came to breaking me? Fine, you made the game, so I'll play by your rules."

He leaned forward a little, that frigid smile still in place. "I was already broken when you found me. I'd already seen and done and felt things that no child should ever have to. But yes, you took whatever was left of my heart and my pride and my self-esteem, and shattered it. I had nightmares and flashbacks and lived in fear. You made me feel _weak_ , and I hated it.

"But I took the fear you gave me and turned it into determination. I poured it into getting stronger so that I would never feel that weak again. I took all those broken pieces and glued them back together stronger than before. You might have won round one, but I have every intention of winning the war."

Gray sighed and leaned back, some of the tightly-controlled fury fading a bit. "You know, I broke every mirror I could get my hands on because I couldn't stand seeing my reflection anymore. I didn't like the person I saw looking back at me. I could only see the shame and pain and fear, and it disgusted me." He pushed himself to his feet, an almost-triumphant smile ghosting over his face. "But you know, in the end, it's _you_ who disgusts _me_."

That was only half the story, to be sure. The truth was that there were still pieces of Gray too broken to fix, pieces that still disgusted and shamed him. That was something he'd have to live with and spend the rest of his life trying to overcome.

But this was still a victory of sorts, even if it was a bittersweet one. He felt like he'd put on a good show, that he'd finally torn that smugness off his one-time assailant's face and convinced him that this wasn't just some stupid game. And there was some kind of closure in being able to face down his demons and lock them away. Yes, the brokenness would stay, but at least this part of his nightmare was now laid to rest. It was something. For now, it would have to be enough.

A glint of silver caught his eye, and he stepped over to the side, bending down to pick up the broken necklace. He weighed it in his hand for a moment.

It seemed odd to have kept something so terrible for so long. He had thrown it out dozens of times over the years, but had always dug it back out of the trash in the end. It had been a reminder of his weakness and shame and humiliation. A reminder of why he needed to get stronger, why he had to always be careful and vigilant instead of trusting and naïve. A visible mark of his invisible shame, a burden that he kept because of that niggling doubt in the back of his mind whispering that maybe he had deserved it.

The sound of heavy footsteps coming toward them broke the air suddenly. The Knights. As usual, they had waited to make an appearance until after the action was over.

Gray knelt down in front of the dark mage, met his eyes, smiled. He slipped the necklace into the other man's pocket. "Checkmate," he breathed.

Then the Knights burst into the room and Gray stood again, backing up slowly, keeping his eyes fixed on his defeated foe the whole time. He watched impassively as the Council's henchmen began snapping cuffs onto the dark guilders, wondering how it was possible to be bursting with so many painful emotions but yet still feel numb at the same time.

It was only when his friends hesitantly walked over to stand by him that he really remembered that they were there at all. With all his attention so entirely occupied, it had been easy to lose track of who else was present. Now he just grimaced and kept his gaze pointed forward, not knowing what to do now that they knew.

Clearly they didn't know what to do either, what he needed from them and what comfort he'd take rather than reject. He didn't blame them. He felt much the same.

Erza stopped right next to him, and he didn't fail to notice how she came as close as humanly possible while still being very careful not to actually touch him. Perhaps she was just waiting to see if he'd cross the divide because she wasn't sure how he'd react to being touched, especially after he'd almost taken her head off back when he'd panicked in the guild.

He left the gap.

The others didn't come quite as close, but Gray could feel their presence there anyway, and it made his skin prickle uncomfortably. For a few moments, they watched the Knights work in silence.

"I'll go kill him for you," Natsu offered finally.

It was impossible to decipher his emotions, especially because there was no way in hell that Gray could possibly make eye contact. The anger wasn't unexpected because this was Natsu, but there was something like grief or pain hidden underneath, and Gray wasn't sure what to make of it.

"Don't bother," Gray said hollowly, watching as a Knight slipped anti-magic cuffs onto the object of his attention and dragged him to his feet. "He's not worth it."

"Of course he's not," the dragon slayer snapped. "But _you_ are."

Gray swallowed, dropped his gaze to his feet, forced himself to look back at his assailant again. "The Knights already have him in custody. It's not worth it to go up against the Council."

"Screw the Council," Erza said, her voice wavering slightly. "It's not like they do anything anyway. I'd go against the Council for this."

Gray was so startled to hear this from Erza of all people that he almost looked over at her, but then hunched his shoulders a little instead. "I already took care of it. It's enough."

Silence fell for a few more seconds. His friends were still shocked and horrified enough to have no idea what to say or how to handle the situation, and Gray didn't know how to go about it either. He wasn't sure how he could face them now, especially when all he wanted to do was wake up and discover that this had all been a horrible dream.

"That time you had a panic attack in the middle of the guild…" Happy swallowed hard. "It wasn't about Deliora, was it?"

"No," Gray said after a moment, shaking his head slightly. "But it was much easier when that's what you assumed it was."

He reached up unconsciously, his hand absently searching for the pendant that should be around his neck. His fingers closed on empty air, and he dropped his hand again as he remembered that the necklace was gone for good. He wasn't sure how he felt about that. The hated thing was gone, and partly it felt good, like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. But he also didn't know how to live without it, and throwing out a chunk of metal hadn't erased the pain.

"It was worse that it was me, wasn't it?" Natsu asked quietly. "Since I use fire too? I'm sorry. I'm really sorry."

Gray turned his face just far enough to give his friend a smile like broken glass, even though he still couldn't meet his eyes. "Like I said, it had _nothing_ to do with you. Anyway, it's the feeling of being pinned and trapped and helpless that's really triggering, not the fire."

The heat and flames could definitely worsen things if he was already panicking, but Natsu didn't need to know that.

"I'm so sorry," Lucy whispered finally, her voice choked with tears. "I can't believe… I'm so sorry."

Gray shrugged halfheartedly. "It's not like it's the worst thing that's ever happened to me."

That honor still went to Deliora. It seemed silly to get so worked up over something like this after watching a demon kill his family and Ur. That had always bothered him too, that he could put something that had really only affected him up near the level of something that had destroyed the lives of everyone he had cared about. And he would take the assault a thousand times over if it could undo the damage the demon did, but that didn't do anything to lessen the pain and humiliation. Maybe it wasn't the worst thing that had ever happened to him, but it still hurt like hell anyway.

"Gray… Are you okay?" Erza asked hesitantly, worry and regret palpable in her voice.

He was scared and furious and hurting. He felt as weak as he felt strong, as shamed and disgusted as he felt vindicated. He felt like the softest of wrong touches could undo him and send all his broken pieces crumbling down. He had no idea how this revelation would change the dynamic of the team, didn't want to know how his friends would look at him now and what they would think, couldn't imagine how he could face them now that they knew his shame. Right now he felt like that child again, defenseless and exposed, frightened and humiliated, broken and alone.

"Yes," he said.

 _Not really. But maybe I will be, someday._

 _Or maybe not._

* * *

 **Note: Every choice in this part has an internal parallel. The rapist's personality is the way it is because I don't know about you, but this is how my screwed-up mind functions. He's basically an external construct of Gray's mind and struggle against himself.**

 **Somehow, this seemed even worse when I went back to reread and edit. If you catch some weird errors, it's because my brain started skimming over some of the worst parts, especially Gray's thoughts. I kind of hate myself for writing this x.x**


	3. Part 3

"I'm hungry," Natsu said suddenly, interrupting the girls' chatter. "Can we go get some more food?"

"What? We just ate!" Lucy exclaimed.

"And?"

"How can you still be hungry?"

"…I'm starving."

Gray chuckled quietly, tilting his head in their direction for a moment before his gaze skittered away and he returned to staring up at the sky, basking in the warmth of the sun and the softness of the grass underneath him. A flicker of discomfort squirmed in his stomach, but he firmly pushed it away. This was the first team job they'd gone on since that earthshattering revelation last week, and he was determined to enjoy it. At least the friendly bickering and whining about food was more normal, when the last week had been anything but.

No one had known how to handle the situation when Gray so clearly didn't want to talk about it, so they had reluctantly let him try to sweep the incident under the rug. Except that Gray couldn't just ignore it entirely, and neither could they. He could tell that the girls were aching to give him comforting words, wrap him in hugs, tell him that everything would be okay. But they didn't, because he wasn't acknowledging what had happened and they seemed to be afraid that he'd go into another panic attack if they so much as accidentally touched him.

And it wasn't really their fault, because Gray wasn't giving them any reason to believe otherwise. As much as he wished things could go back to how they had been before, he couldn't be around his friends without a persistent mantra of _they know, they know, they know_ playing in the back of his mind. Some of his surface acting was pretty good, but he knew that he was behaving differently.

He wasn't talking as much, came to the guild late and left early, was often fidgety and tense. But the worst thing was how he couldn't meet anyone's eyes. Partly it was because he didn't want to see the pity and horror and grief, but mostly it was because he was ashamed, because he was dirty and weak and broken and now they knew it too. He kept on smiling and laughing and chatting, but he could feel himself slowly withdrawing, quietly trying to distance himself from the people he loved the most.

His friends could certainly tell, and even the rest of the guild was suspicious that something had happened. They didn't know any of the details, but he still had a hard time facing them anyway, still couldn't look them in the eye. It felt like now that his secret had been exposed it was written all over his face, visible to the naked eye if anyone looked closely enough. They might not know, but it felt like they did.

A few of them had noticed the alterations in his behavior, realized that they had started after the job where he had lost his ever-present necklace, wondered what had happened. Most of them would drop the subject when he laughed it off and said that he was fine, but Mira was not one of them.

She had cornered him again this morning, asking him why he looked so tired and thin, reminding him that she was always willing to listen if he wanted to talk about whatever was eating away at him. Erza had eventually come to the rescue, interrupting the interrogation and firmly declaring that the team was going on a job. At first Gray had been relieved, but then had started silently freaking out as he realized this meant that he was going to be alone with all the people who _knew_. At least when he was in the guild there was a buffer of people who were in the dark, an added protection against the people who knew trying to talk to him about what had happened.

But it's not like he could avoid them forever and he'd be lying if he said that he didn't miss the team, so he hadn't protested. He would be selfish and ignore the problem for a little longer, but he could give them this. On the bright side, some of the awkwardness had gradually melted away as they took care of the job. It wasn't perfect, but it was something.

Afterward, Erza had spotted this grassy field outside town and declared that they would have a picnic since she'd never had a proper one before. Her determination and excitement had been hard to resist, so they'd bought some food and sat out in the field to eat and chat. And damn had Gray missed this, being able to lounge around with his friends and laugh like nothing was wrong. He still couldn't forget entirely, but he was trying.

"I could go for another fish," Happy mumbled.

"I don't understand how you guys can eat so much," Lucy said with a sigh.

Natsu huffed. "We could just run back into town and grab something."

"Why don't you just wait until we get back to Magnolia?" Gray asked. "We should probably be leaving soon anyway."

Silence greeted his words, and even though he wasn't looking at his friends, he could feel the sudden tension in the air. He frowned, wondering why the casual atmosphere had abruptly turned so awkward.

"Um, yeah, before we go…" Erza cleared her throat uncomfortably. "We, uh…"

Gray's heart sank and a nauseous feeling settled in his stomach.

 _Oh God, they want to address it._

 _No, no, no, no, no._

He sat up, crossing his legs and burying his hands in the grass in front of him, his fingers digging reflexively into the hard ground. Taking a shaky breath, he hunched his shoulders and stared down at his hands.

"What?" he asked, trying to disguise the slight waver in his voice.

 _Please don't do what I think you're going to do._

"Um…" Lucy sighed. "We want to, uh, give you something."

"…What?"

"We're, um, not sure if you'll actually want it, but…"

"What?" he asked again, the anxiety growing the longer they stalled.

There was another moment of hesitation, but then Erza reached into her pocket. Gray watched her searching hand so that he didn't have to look at her face. When she found what she was looking for, she started to extend her hand toward him but then paused again.

"You don't have to take it if you don't want to," she said quietly.

Gray nodded and steeled himself. Whatever it was, they were expecting a reaction out of him. That didn't bode well.

Erza leaned forward a little and uncurled her fingers. Gray sucked in a harsh breath, automatically reaching up. His hand closed on empty air and he dropped it again, but he could still feel the phantom weight of a chain around his neck.

 _"I should give you something for being such a good sport. I pay whores, so I guess I should pay you too, yeah?"_

He unconsciously wrapped his arms around himself, staring at the silver chain coiled in Erza's palm as if it was a snake that might strike at any moment. Disgust and fear and pain made his skin crawl, and he knotted his hands into fists to disguise the slight tremble.

 _Why, why, why?_

"I think this was a bad idea," Happy mumbled.

"We know…" Lucy swallowed hard. "We know that the other one was…not good for you. But we thought… I don't know. I think everyone always assumed that it was something really important to you, something with a lot of personal significance, but not…"

"We wanted to give you something with that significance," Erza said, her voice sad. "Something you could take pride in, a reminder that we care about you. Something to replace what the other one meant. But we know that it's still something really…painful for you, so if you're not ready or you don't want that kind of reminder… Well, it's up to you."

"And we could always, like, hold on to it for you if you don't want it now, in case you change your mind later," Happy added anxiously.

 _'I never wanted_ anything _from you.'_

Gray let out a shaky breath. If _anyone_ else had offered him this, he would have turned it down in two seconds flat. He'd just gotten rid of that shameful reminder, was finally free of it for the first time in years, and he didn't want to go back. But these were his friends, his team, the ones who knew, and he felt like he was obligated to at least try for them. He owed them that much.

"You don't have to," Erza said again. "It's your choice."

 _'What made you think that I wanted you to pay me like I was a common whore? Like I had a_ choice _?'_

Gray felt the weight of that, that assurance that he got to decide. He hadn't gotten to decide about the last one. He might have chosen to keep it afterward—although it had felt more like a self-destructive compulsion than a real choice—but he hadn't chosen to be assaulted and have the thing thrown in his face as if he'd actually had a say.

For a second, he reveled in the ability to say no. If he said no, his friends wouldn't throw him against the wall and laugh and do whatever they wanted. They would respect his decision. His 'no' would mean something.

And it was because he had the ability to say no, because they had given him the choice, that he slowly reached out a hand. Erza hesitated, unsure of what to make of his behavior, clearly unable to read his expression, but then deposited the necklace in his palm. He didn't fail to notice how careful she was not to accidentally touch him and absently thought that he should probably address that concern already, but his attention was quickly arrested by the object in his hand.

He studied it, trying to push aside the instinctive disgust. He frowned slightly and ran his fingers over the pendant, feeling the cool metal against his skin. This one wasn't a sword, but a replica of Fairy Tail's guild mark. A reminder of his guild, his friends, his home.

"You don't belong to him," Lucy said in a small voice. "Is that why you kept it? You don't. You belong to… _with_ us, if you want to."

 _'I'm not your pet, your bitch, your toy.'_

Gray flinched back before he could stop himself, the words searing him like fire.

 _I don't belong to anyone._

 _But he claimed you._

 _I don't care. I don't want to belong to him._

 _So? What does it matter what you want? It doesn't change anything._

"I'm sorry," Lucy said hastily. "I didn't mean… I guess I shouldn't have said that."

"It's fine," he said, shifting uncomfortably under the weight of a collar that should no longer be there.

He stared down at the pendant, tracing over its edges absently. If he belonged to anyone, then he wanted it to be to his friends. He had chosen to belong to the guild when he'd joined and painted its mark on his chest, had chosen to belong to his friends when he'd joined their team and let them into his heart. That wasn't a bond of ownership and possession, but one of love and friendship. If he was going to wear anyone's mark, he wanted it to be theirs.

He swallowed hard and bit down on the inside of his cheek. With trembling fingers, he hesitantly slipped the necklace on, preparing himself for the worst. For a second it was like he could feel that old ache start up again, that old burden settle on his chest once more, but then the feeling faded a little. The chain was lighter, the pendant thinner and smoother, and those subtle differences were enough to help differentiate it from its predecessor.

It still hurt, still dredged up memories he'd rather forget, but maybe his friends were right and it could be a reminder of better things too. For a moment he let himself open up, thawed out his heart just enough to let in the warmth as well as the pain. And he could feel it then, the love and concern and caring of his friends.

"Thank you," he mumbled finally, his voice thick.

"Of course," Erza said immediately. "It's not much, but if there's anything we can do…"

Gray's gaze slowly traveled across the distance separating them and fixed on the requip mage's hands folded in her lap.

"You don't always have to be so careful about not touching me," he said hollowly. "I'm not going to freak out and try to kill you again."

Even though he wasn't looking at her face, he could practically hear the wince in her voice.

"It's not about that," she said quickly. "It's… We don't want you to be any more uncomfortable than you have to."

Gray sighed. It made him uncomfortable, but not for the reasons they thought.

"You guys don't need to worry about me falling apart at any minute." He sighed again. "I really should have made this clear earlier, I guess. I know it's been kind of weird for you and you're having a hard time figuring out what to do. But seriously, I'm not always five seconds away from freaking out. And I know…I know I haven't really been making it any easier on you and I'm sorry, but I'll work things out and it will be fine."

"It hasn't been easy on _us_?" Happy asked disbelievingly. "No, it hasn't been easy, but we know it's been a lot worse for you."

Gray just shrugged and frowned at the ground. "It's nothing new to me. It's not the same curveball for me that it is for you."

"Does that really make it any easier?" Lucy asked quietly.

He shrugged again. Not really. He'd managed to mostly force the memories and emotions out of his conscious awareness over the years, but they had all resurfaced again last week and now he would have to work through them once more. It was hard to deny that all the hurt he'd experienced as a child had embedded itself into his psyche, feeding into his insecurities and shredding his self-esteem.

"It'll be fine," he said neutrally, wanting to get this out of the way so that they could go back to pretending like it had never happened. "All I'm saying is that you don't have to worry about being so careful about everything."

No one replied immediately, but then he heard a slight shifting sound and raised his gaze just enough to see Erza lean forward and extend her hand toward him again. He stared at it blankly for a moment, but she didn't try to touch him, just left her hand hovering in the air, palm up, fingers uncurled invitingly.

Gray reached out, needing to prove to them and to himself that he was fine and could do this, but his hand paused just above Erza's. He swallowed hard, hating the sudden tremors of his fingers and the fact that he couldn't seem to make himself cross those last few centimeters.

 _Stop being so pathetic. Just do it._

 _Can't. Don't drag them into this._

 _They need this. It's hurting them too._

 _They'd be better off without it. Without you._

 _Stop it, stop it. They care. They want to help._

 _But they shouldn't._

"You don't have to," Erza said softly, her voice sad. "If you aren't ready, you don't have to."

Gray flinched, his heart jumping into his throat. "Don't say that," he said harshly, hating the edge of desperation and hopelessness creeping into his voice. "You don't understand. I _need_ to be able to do this."

Admitting defeat would be giving in to the twisted voices in his head and their lies. It wouldn't just be saying that he was a little too uncomfortable to deal with physical contact yet. It would be saying that he was still broken and alone and undeserving of that comfort. He couldn't afford to keep thinking like that.

"If you're going to be that uncomfortable–"

"You don't understand," Gray said again, shrinking into himself a little. "It's not about it bringing back memories or flashbacks or feelings. It's not about me not trusting you. It's about me and how I feel about myself."

He flushed, the admission bruising what was left of his pride. He had worked so hard to convince everyone that he was strong and confident, had worked hard to convince _himself_ of that, and it was hard to admit that it wasn't really as true as everyone thought. He had talked such a big game back when he'd faced that bastard, needing to convince him and his friends and himself that he no longer felt weak or disgusted or ashamed, that he had put himself back together even stronger than before and was no longer bothered by such trivial things from way back in the past. But that was only half true at best, and sometimes a big fat lie.

"Gray…"

He shook his head and focused on his trembling fingers, willing them to bridge the gap.

 _Don't, don't. Pathetic, dirty, broken._

 _Please…_

 _How can you face them, knowing what you are?_

 _I need them._

 _You are alone. You will always be alone._

 _No, I need them._

 _You don't deserve–_

With a shaky gasp, he forced himself to cross the space. He almost wanted to cry in relief, but instead tightened his grip on Erza's hand, clutching it like a lifeline, as if she might slip away if he didn't hold on tightly enough.

Erza didn't move immediately, but then she ripped her hand out of his grasp, lurched forward, and threw her arms around him, hugging him tightly enough to leave bruises. Gray squawked in surprise, but hesitantly wrapped his arms around her as well. He could feel the slightest tremble of tension in her body, and realized that she had been waiting to do this for a week now but had been too afraid to try until she was sure he was ready to accept it.

He bowed his head, bit down on the inside of his cheek because he was _not_ going to cry, and let her hold him. Lucy cautiously inched closer to join in on the weird hugging thing, and even Happy crept over to press himself against Gray's side.

It felt good and hurt at the same time. In some ways it made Gray feel even more vulnerable and exposed—his friends were comforting him because they _knew_ , and he was still ashamed to have that secret uncovered and to need that comfort—and in others it made him feel protected and safe to be surrounded by the people he loved. He submitted to the gesture despite his mixed feelings, allowing himself to open up to them just a little bit. Just for a few minutes, before he could go back to ignoring this whole issue again.

"Get over here, Natsu," Erza said.

Gray winced. Group hugs were already awkward enough, and this was definitely not the kind of thing Natsu would like.

"Nah, that's okay," the dragon slayer said, speaking up for the first time in… Well, the first time since this whole issue had been brought up. He sounded a little flippant, like it wasn't a big deal, but Gray could hear something lurking underneath the surface.

"Natsu…"

"Let him be," Gray mumbled. "He finds this stuff just as awkward as I do."

"But–"

"I'm not sure it's a good idea," Natsu said, suddenly sounding a lot more tired and regretful.

"Why not?" Lucy asked, puzzled.

Gray could hear Natsu shifting uncomfortably in the grass, but the dragon slayer didn't respond. It took him a few seconds to realize what the likely cause was, but then he sighed and hunched his shoulders, staring down blankly.

"I already said that it had nothing to do with you," he said quietly. "We've had how many fights over the years? I only freaked out once—it was a total accident and it wasn't your fault."

He hadn't failed to notice that Natsu hadn't tried to start a single fight since last week's revelation. He was sure that part of it went along with this new no-touching policy his friends had adopted, but he'd be lying if he said that he hadn't suspected a good part of it had to do with that one panic attack. He had the feeling that learning the real reason behind that attack hadn't actually made Natsu feel any better about it.

Gray really had meant to try fixing that, but he had kept putting it off because addressing the issue meant acknowledging, even indirectly, what had happened to him last week and as a child. He should have just done it, but the hurt had still been too raw, and shame made him selfish.

"And you know… Part of the reason I wanted to be your rival was because you used fire magic and I needed to be able to know that I could hold my own against it. Those fights did a lot more good than you realize. They helped build my confidence back up and made me feel like I could defend myself again. And they're kind of fun, aren't they? Don't…Don't let me ruin it because I freaked out once."

After a few seconds' pause, Natsu scooted closer. He didn't join in the weird hugging thing, but he punched Gray lightly on the arm and settled at his side.

"You aren't ruining anything," he said with a sigh.

Gray just shrugged halfheartedly. Sometimes it did feel like he was ruining things now. He was pushing his friends away, and now they were worried and uncertain of how to respond. Things certainly weren't the same as they had been before, and he was the one who had changed them.

Deciding that he'd tolerated the hugging long enough for the girls to be satisfied, he worked on wriggling his way out of their grasp. They released him almost immediately and sat back, still wary of pushing him too far.

Gray cleared his throat and picked at the grass awkwardly. "Can we go now?"

"Gray…" Erza sighed. "We know that you don't want to talk about it, and we aren't going to pressure you. But if you need us, if you decide later that you need to talk or you just need support or whatever, we're always here for you, okay? I said that we'd be here for you no matter what, and that's still true. Nothing is changing that."

Gray swallowed. "Yeah."

"But it would be nice if you could at least look at us again," Lucy said quietly.

 _"You're a little young for my taste. Usually I like them older, but I'll make an exception for you since you've got such pretty eyes."_

"I…" Gray stiffened and frowned down at his hands.

How was he supposed to explain that he couldn't? It wasn't even so much that he was afraid of what he'd see in his friends' eyes, even though he really didn't want to see their concern and sadness and sympathy. It was more that he was afraid of what they'd see in _his_ eyes. He was afraid that they'd be able to read all that self-loathing and disgust and shame.

"Gray, please."

He just shook his head helplessly. But apparently this was of greater importance than the no-touching thing, because Lucy was clearly unwilling to let it go on any longer. Reaching out, she gently guided his face upward. Gray swallowed hard, his gaze fixating on a point just left of her eyes.

"Please," she whispered.

Gray closed his eyes and exhaled shakily. He couldn't just run away forever. Putting artificial distance between himself and his friends was hurting them just as much as it was hurting him. It was embarrassing how hard it was to open his eyes and force them to meet Lucy's.

She smiled sadly. "See, it's not so bad."

Gray was inclined to disagree. He felt even more exposed than usual, half convinced that she could read his darkest thoughts in his eyes. It was impossible to look at her continuously, and despite his best efforts, his gaze kept flickering away before he forced himself to refocus on her. He dutifully glanced over to meet Happy's eyes, then Erza's, and then even Natsu's, for the quickest of seconds. Obligation complete, he went back to staring at the ground.

Unfortunately, that didn't seem to satisfy anyone this time.

"Is it really that bad?" Happy asked.

Gray shrugged.

"Why is it so hard?" Lucy pressed.

He shrugged again.

"I mean, I guess I get why, but…" She trailed off.

Another shrug.

Erza sighed heavily. "I don't think you really understand exactly how much we love you."

Gray choked out a strangled laugh and buried his face in his hands. "You're wrong," he said, his voice wavering slightly. "You're wrong. I do know. None of this has anything to do with you—it's about me. It's not that I don't understand how much you care, just that I need to convince myself that…" _…that I really deserve it._

Well, he certainly couldn't say that. Aside from having a vested interest in convincing his friends that he was perfectly fine and they should stop worrying already, he couldn't bring himself to voice all the screwed-up thoughts bouncing around inside his head.

 _They love me._

 _What possible reason could they have to love you?_

 _…I don't know._

 _Pity isn't the same as love._

 _They love me._

 _But they shouldn't._

 _It's been nearly ten years—why is this still an issue? Why am I still so messed up?_

 _Because you're weak. Because you're weak and pathetic and you don't deserve love after what you did to Ur and how disgustingly weak you proved yourself to be in letting yourself be assaulted like that._

 _I didn't let–_

 _But you were weak and that's why it happened. But maybe it's just as well, because you'd already done enough terrible things by that point to have deserved it._

"It's not that you're doing anything wrong or that I think you don't care enough or whatever," he said finally. "If I seem like I'm uncomfortable with you, it's because I'm uncomfortable with myself, and it makes me even more uncomfortable to know that you've been figuring out all the different reasons why that is."

He could be pretty genuine a lot of the time, when all his issues were hibernating somewhere in the back of his mind, but whenever they flared up again he had to immediately throw up a mask to make himself seem more okay than he was. Now that his friends had looked behind that mask and glimpsed what was hidden underneath, he didn't know what to do with himself. The mask was crumbling in his hands, and he was just desperately trying to hold together as many broken pieces as possible to maintain some semblance of his normal façade.

"You have so much to be proud of," Lucy said after a moment. "You're the only one who is ashamed of yourself, you know. You're the only one who thinks you're weak and broken. We don't think that, and it's really sad that you do. We've always been really proud of you, Gray. You should be proud of yourself too. He shouldn't be able to take that from you."

 _Except that you_ did _let him take it._

Gray tried to smooth out his grimace. "Mhm."

"And you're really brave," Happy added anxiously. "In lots of ways."

 _No, you're really not. You let him take that too._

"Yup."

"Happy's right, you know," Erza said, noting his lackluster response. "You've proven it many times over. But maybe what proved it the most is that even though you faced so much adversity in your life, you still got up each morning and put on a brave face and didn't let any of that stop you. And really, walking away from that man instead of just breaking down or killing him like he undoubtedly deserved and like I'm certain you wanted to… That took a lot of courage, Gray, to face down your demons like that and still stay true to yourself."

 _Brave? She must be joking._

"Yeah."

"You're a lot of things," Natsu said suddenly, "but broken isn't one of them. You wouldn't make a good rival if you were weak. I wouldn't say that you're stronger than me, obviously, but… You're still pretty strong, yeah?"

 _Don't you wish? You really just let him take everything, didn't you?_

"Sure," Gray mumbled, wishing this intervention would come to an end already.

It's not that he didn't appreciate what his friends were trying to do, because he did. But in the end, it made him feel worse because it reminded him of just how screwed up he still was, and that he really should be over it by now. It was pretty pathetic that all this was still plaguing him so long after the actual incident.

He let out a shuddering breath. "Can we go now?" he asked, his voice barely louder than a whisper.

There was a long pause as everyone realized that things weren't going as well as they'd hoped. Then Natsu draped an arm over Gray's shoulder. It was done in a casual fashion, not quite matching the dark atmosphere, but it was hard to miss that this was about the closest he would ever come to demonstrating a physical show of affection and support for his rival.

Gray started in surprise, his gaze automatically darting up to meet Natsu's before he could stop himself. Natsu was smiling faintly, although something tired and sad colored the expression. His eyes were nothing but sincere when he spoke.

"Been a while since we've had a good brawl. Second lunch is more important, but after we get back to the guild and I get something to eat, we could totally have a fight. Whaddya say, ice block?"

 _What else are you going to let him take from you? You have to draw the line somewhere._

Gray half wanted to laugh, half wanted to cry. It was funny, but he'd maybe felt even more awkward around Natsu than anyone else. Maybe it was just the nature of their relationship. Maybe it was that showing weakness in front of his rival was even more intolerable than displaying it for everyone else. Mostly it was because their friendship and rivalry was built on them being strong and confident and never showing weakness to each other, so it was more heavily damaged than other relationships when all those things crumbled. Because Gray didn't feel strong and confident, and was certainly showing weakness along with all those secrets. Because all of that had crumbled away and none of the broken pieces fit together, and what was left of that relationship then?

It wasn't so much that Gray had expected Natsu to look at him with disgust or condescension or pity, any more than he'd expected the girls or Happy to. It wasn't that he'd expected to be abandoned when it came to light how screwed up he was. But maybe he _had_ expected to see some knowledge of those flaws in Natsu's eyes—some dawning realization that Gray was, in fact, weak and pathetic and not nearly as strong or brave or confident as he'd always made himself out to be.

But there was none of that in the dragon slayer's eyes and, come to think of it, it hadn't been in anyone else's eyes either. No, Gray had only seen acceptance and love.

 _'You already took so much from me—you don't get to take this too.'_

Gray understood the significance of the offer Natsu was making. It wasn't the first offer he'd gotten over the past week, or even just today. His friends had all been offering him support and he had, for the most part, been rejecting it all. Maybe it was time to step up and take the proffered hands and let his friends help him really recover.

Maybe it was time to fight.

 _'I took all those broken pieces and glued them back together stronger than before. You might have won round one, but I have every intention of winning the war.'_

And he'd already started, hadn't he? He had already started figuring out how to piece himself together again, had been doing so for years. He had never found the perfect solution, maybe there _was_ no perfect solution that would magically make things better, but he had still come a long way from being a scared little kid in an alley, hadn't he? He had made a start, and that was something.

This wasn't a war that he could afford to lose.

 _You lost this war before it even started._

 _No… I don't think I did. I think I'm too strong to have lost just yet._

 _Oh? And how do you figure that? You're so weak it's laughable._

 _Because I survived. I survived Deliora and I survived him and I survived everything else the world threw at me. I survived it all._

 _But you're still so, so broken._

 _Maybe, but I never gave up. I survived and I fought and I rebuilt my life. And I did that all on my own. Imagine what I could do with the others._

 _In the end, it won't matter. How can they help you when you can't even help yourself?_

Taking a deep breath, he let his gaze roam across the gathering of faces, taking a few seconds to meet everyone's eyes despite the discomfort. Underneath the worry and sadness, the love was palpable.

 _They love me._

 _But they shouldn't._

Gray leaned into Natsu, slumping over like a marionette with its strings cut. After a moment of hesitation, the dragon slayer tightened the casual gesture into a real hug.

 _But they do._

 _But they shouldn't._

 _Why not?_

 _Because you're weak and pathetic and disgusting and broken._

 _Am I? Am I really?_

 _Yes._

Gray unconsciously reached up to tug at his necklace, but instead of feeling the all-too-familiar sword, his fingers closed around a perfectly smooth, flat piece of metal. He traced around the edges, letting the pride and love of his guild sweep away the pain and shame. The burden was still there, it would be there for the rest of his life, but this love and acceptance would always be there too. It was something. It was a start. A reminder that he had all the support and care he ever needed, if he could just let go of the rest and let his family in.

 _Hm. Even_ if _that was true, they love me anyway._

 _So?_

"Yeah," Gray whispered, finally letting the tears he had been fighting back spill down his cheeks. "I'd like that."

 _…So maybe I should love myself too._

* * *

 **Note: For some reason that last line always made me cry, and I never really understood why. I mean, I've written really tragic things before and they rarely make me cry. And I was looking at this line the other day, and it finally hit me that the reason it always gets me is because this is the underlying theme of a lot of what I write, and it was hard to realize that that's what I've been writing all along. And you know, if it wasn't an important message, then I doubt I would have been subconsciously writing it to myself for a year and a half. So if you're ever going to take any kind of message or whatnot from anything I write, I hope it's this.**


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